Title of the Project
Determinants of paternal behavior in families after parental relationship breakdown within the context of different social models. A comparison of Germany and Sweden

Demographic, social and economic changes have effected living arrangements and family practices of both, parents and children. The development has caused a re-definition of men’s role within families who are no longer exclusively considered as providers. This leads to an inconsistent situation for fathers. On the one hand, from a ‘new’ kind of ‘active’ father a family orientated, child centred attitude, a higher allocation of time towards and a more intense contact with their children is expected as well as wanted. This includes also a growing expectation that fathers should be actively involved in daily childcare.
On the other hand, simultaneously, the emerging social change – inter alia expressed in increasing divorce rates – leads to a high diversity of family arrangements. An growing number of these is characterised by non-resident fathers due to parental separation or divorce. Often fathers spend less time with their children in a household. Legally, absent fathers still maintain duties after family breakdown. Even though a large number of men meet their agreed obligations, several give even more or provide voluntarily – in notions of “Cash” and “Care”-, some fathers lose contact to their children shortly after moving out. Others default on their child support payments or do not fulfil their financial duties at all.
Despite a growing public as well as scientific debate about post-separation families, so far, little is known about the actual fathering after family dissolution. Why some men decide to spent time and money as father, while others deny their parental obligations is one of the central questions of this project. Which form and extent has fathering in post-separated families? How do fathers fulfil their social, emotional and financial obligations in everyday arrangements from their own perspective? How – based on which economical, socio-demographic and institutional determinants - can the variations in non-resident fathering be explained?
Fathering has to be considered within a wider social context which also implies the welfare state regime. The degree of institutionalization of fatherhood varies across different social models. Thus considering men as fathers require to take into account the bond between fatherhood and institutions. That means institutions which promote and support resp. hinder fathering one way or the other. This includes institutions such as legal circumstances as well as norms and gender specific expectations. Do men care less when the state compensates their absence and exempt them from their paternal responsibilities? Can state intervention force, or better encourage fathers to pay or rather to care?
In order to analyse the social framework of non-resident fatherhood the described project will compare fathering in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands representing different social models. The differences as well as the similarities across the respective political, legal and social circumstances of fathering and their effects on fathering in everyday life will be examined and compared. The analysis will be based on individual data sets from individual fathers.